AMMAN — Palestinian prisoner Hisham Abu Hawash has been on hunger strike for 140 days, one of the longest prison hunger strikes ever held by a Palestinian, over his detention without trial, reported by TRT World, a Turkish state owned news organization, on Monday.
اضافة اعلان
Human
rights groups and the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have
expressed concern over Abu Hawash’s health condition, which has reportedly
deteriorated in the past three days. The ICRC said he was “in critical
condition requiring expert clinical monitoring” and called on efforts to be
made “to find a solution to avoid irreversible health consequences and possible
tragic loss of life.”
Physicians for Human Rights Israel warned on Sunday that Abu
Hawash is in “imminent danger of death due to potassium deficiency and
arrhythmia.”
Palestinian
civil society, the
Palestinian Authority and Palestinian members of the Israeli
Knesset have called for Abu Hawash’s release. Palestinians took to the streets
in support of that demand late last week in West Bank cities including
Ramallah. In Umm al Fahem, a town in central Israel predominantly inhabited by
Palestinians with Israeli citizenship, four people were arrested as a protest
was violently quashed by police.
Abu
Hawash, a 40-year-old father of five from the southern West Bank town of Dura,
near Hebron, has been in administrative detention in Israeli jails since
October 2020. Such detentions are ordered by military courts and they can last
for months without the charges being disclosed.
He is
currently being held at Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva, where he was
recently transferred from Israel’s Ramle prison. According to Israeli daily
Haaretz, his detention order was suspended last week, but Abu Hawash decided to
carry on with the strike until it is revoked entirely.
The
danger of Abu Hawash’s sudden death due to organ failure is very real at this
stage, as pointed out by medical experts in the last few days. IRA leader Bobby
Sands died after a 66-day hunger strike that changed the course of conflict in
Northern Ireland in 1981.
Pressure
is mounting on the Palestinian Authority to intervene. Prisoners usually end
their strikes after striking deals with the Israeli authorities involving
either their release or assurances their open-ended detention will come to an
end. However, former hunger strikers often suffer permanent health damages
after they recover.
It
comes amid fears of an escalation of violence in the occupied territories after
Israel launched raids on
Gaza over the weekend, reportedly after two rockets
were fired from the enclave. There were no casualties on either side.
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